Sand and Sea

Back near the beginning of summer I'd posted about this year's return to the beach, for movies on the beach. It was a good time, but it was night and didn't feature the sun and swimming of a proper beach trip.

Went through most of summer without making a return trip, either for conventional beaching, or for a movie. Before it ended, however, I managed to get two trips in!!!

Both trips were to Horny Corner. The first time surrogate was arranging for several people to go... then his car broke!!! On the day he'd been planning, I asked if he wanted me to come by and pick him up, and he said he wasn't going, and everyone else flaked out, too. I had been looking forward to it, and younger came with me.

It wasn't crowded at all, and it was a very high tide!!!

There's usually seagulls perched on some of the swim area buoys, but this time there was a pelican on one of them!!! We usually will swim out to the buoy line, and when there's a gull, we'll see how close we can get. Often, I'll get within around 6 feet and they'll be getting a little sketchy, then I'll go under and swim under to around the same distance on the other side, and they'll fly away while I'm under. Got this picture of a pelican on the wing after we were out of the water.

We mostly got there, got in the water, and swam most of the time!!! Out to the buoy line, then down to the bridge. Last year one time when surrogate and I had gone with just us, we'd done the same swim, but this was the first time for younger. Swam back, dried off, then went for burgers at Grill 'Em All!!! I got the same as last time, the Witte, and younger got the Long Beach Dirtbag, a chili burger with bacon, chipotle ketchup, and garlic aoili. And, of course, the primate fries. Once again, I was craving a premium burger, and once again was not disappointed!!!

Two weeks after, we went again!!! This time, surrogate came as well. Got there, and went straight into the water and out to the buoy line!!! Scared off a seagull by swimming under it, swam down to another, and we got really close to the buoy and gull!!! This guy (actually I think it was a girl from the coloring) was pretty bold!!! While we were there swimming around and talking to her, another gull flew up and tried to chase her off, but she stood her ground!!!

The first time we were there, they had the inflatables up, but they were gone the next time. We swam over to the float that they stage from, and climbed up and jumped off it a few times. It's got an unusual construction, with two floats joined together with a wide area of grating between them. I swam under the grating area, and it's a bit strange and claustrophobic under there. Younger swam in after, and I went back under, and surrogate finally came under again. After that, I went back to shore, dried off, and re positioned a chair in the sunlight. As the summer comes to it's end, the light fades faster!!! The sunlight was right to the edge of the water, and I turned the chair towards the sun for a selfie. Oh yeah, it was a fairly high tide again!!!

The guys were still soaking, and I was mostly dried off, so I went and changed. On the way back, I spotted a snowy egret hunting along the water's edge. I went to take a picture, and he was heading off. I followed, parallel to him, and finally caught up for a decent picture.

I really like the burgers at Grill 'Em All, but it's a little expensive!!! After we finished up this time, we headed over to the local In-N-Out for some also great burgers, at a considerably lower price!!! One of my favorite summertime activities (besides hitting the beach!!!), I've realized, is dining outdoors when the sun is down, but the temperature is still up!!!